TEHRAN -- A history book, ‘Operation Eagle Claw 1980: The Disastrous Bid to End the Iran ‎‎Hostage Crisis (2020) by the American diplomat Justin Williamson describes the U.S. ‎futile military bid in Iran. ‎
Iran Media Institute Press has released ‘Operation Eagle Claw 1980’ in 168 pages.
Following months of negotiations after the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4 1979, President Jimmy Carter ordered the newly formed Delta Force to conduct a raid into Iran to free the hostages. The raid, Operation Eagle Claw, was risky to say the least.
U.S. forces would have to fly into the deserts of Iran on C-130s; marry up with carrier-based RH-53D helicopters; fly to hide sites near Tehran; approach the Embassy via trucks; seize the Embassy and rescue the hostages; board the helicopters descending on Tehran; fly to an airbase captured by more U.S. forces; and then fly out on C-141s and to freedom.
Things went wrong from the start and when the mission was called off at the refueling site at Desert One, the resulting collision between aircraft killed eight U.S. personnel.
The book tells the full story of the botched operation, supported by maps, photographs, and specially-commissioned bird’s-eye-views and battle scenes, which reveal the complexity and scale of the proposed rescue and the disaster which followed.
Justin Williamson is a career U.S. diplomat who has served in Iraq, Mexico, Spain, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but calls Texas home. He has degrees from Texas Tech University, The Universit y of Texas at El Paso, and has recently graduated from the U.S. Army Command and Staff College with a Master of Military Arts and Sciences.